Heading for the Plains - Chapter 10

The weekend passed in a blur. Xia Chao rushed through the paperwork for her health certificate, and by Monday, she had officially started her job shaking milk tea.

Summer was the golden season for drink shops. There were originally four employees, but one had found the work too grueling and vanished, forcing the manager to fill in. Having spent the last few days shaking tea until she saw stars, the manager practically wept when she saw Xia Chao. She showered the girl with such frantic warmth that Xia Chao felt like she’d found a second home.

Then, Xia Chao’s own personal hell began.

The most senior employee was a girl named Xiao Zhen. Only a year older than Xia Chao, she had large eyes, a sharp chin, and a fiery temper; a real “Little Chili.” Her original name was Fang Pandi, “Hoping for a Brother” but she hated it so much that as soon as she finished middle school and started working, she changed it to Fang Baozhen.

Still, there were always those without eyes who would taunt her by calling her Pandi. When Xiao Zhen would tear into them for it, they’d just laugh and say it was a joke.

Xia Chao didn’t like that. Back in middle school, many girls came from families where several sisters were expected to drag a single brother along. The girls’ names were always chosen carelessly, while the boys’ names were all designed to “bring glory to the ancestors.” Some had mocked her own name for sounding like a tomboy, and others laughed because she took her mother’s surname, claiming her father must have abandoned her.

I was picked up by my mother; of course I’ll take her name. And my name is feminine enough.

She never bothered to argue, though. She had been the “King of Fighters” since childhood, one punch for every spindly little punk and soon enough, no one dared to breathe a word of that nonsense.

Unfortunately, you can’t punch customers at work. Xia Chao pursed her lips and made a point of calling Xiao Zhen only by her chosen name.

Xiao Zhen took notice and was very appreciative.

New hires usually started with prep work before learning the recipes, but because of the summer rush, Xia Chao had to do both. By the end of her first day, her biceps throbbed from pounding lemons.

Xiao Zhen patted her shoulder with solemn sympathy. “Remember to switch hands. Otherwise, you’ll turn into this.” She held up her phone to show a meme of a crab with one massive “Herculean” claw and one tiny, withered one. Terrified, Xia Chao began switching hands religiously every thirty minutes.

Xiao Zhen cackled at her intensity and taught her a few “trade secrets,” like how to serve a hollow ice cream cone to annoying customers. Thanks to her, Xia Chao became a pro in no time.

******

The real headache, however, was the Gaokao. One evening after work, she sat with Ping Yuan looking over exam papers. Ping Yuan asked her about her subject choices under the new system.

Xia Chao looked up, genuinely confused. “There’s an old Gaokao?”

The sheer earnestness of her confusion caused Ping Yuan a brief, internal heart spasm. It was a stark reminder that her own Gaokao was nine years in the past—ancient history.

Ugh, I really hate young people. Ping Yuan kept her face blank, spitting out a definition like a machine: “The old system was a simple split between Arts and Sciences. Arts was Politics, History, and Geography. Sciences was Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.”

“Oh…” Xia Chao nodded, counting on her fingers. “Our new system is ‘3+1+2’. Chinese, Math, and English are mandatory. Then you choose either Physics or History. Then you pick two from Geography, Chemistry, and Biology. I chose…”

“Forget what you chose before,” Ping Yuan interrupted. She narrowed her eyes with her usual cutting directness. “Because your previous foundation is basically non-existent.”

Xia Chao nearly choked on the bluntness of the remark.

But she had to admit Ping Yuan had hit the nail on the head. Xia Chao took a deep breath. Her best quality was that when she realized someone was right, she didn’t lose her temper. In a voice as soft as dough, she asked, “Then what do you think I should choose?”

“Are you interested in the Liberal Arts? Not just the subjects, but the majors—things like Law, Politics, Philosophy, or Literature?”

The list of names made Xia Chao’s head spin. She shook her head instinctively. “Not really.”

“Why not?”

“I get dizzy looking at those blocks of text.”

She spoke too fast, realizing she sounded like an illiterate again. She tried to backtrack: “Uh, I don’t mean I can’t read. I just don’t understand the ‘significance’ or the ‘objectives’ behind History and Politics. I feel like if a thing happened, it happened. Why do people have to talk so much about it?”

Now I sound even more illiterate! She struggled: “I mean… it feels like one sentence has ten different meanings. I can’t quite hear what they’re actually trying to say.”

The more she explained, the worse it got. She admitted in despair: “I can’t learn the Arts.”

It was humiliating. Humans were just too complicated.

Surprisingly, Ping Yuan nodded. “I understand.”

When Ping Yuan had reached her second year of high school, she had chosen Sciences without a second thought. Even though she excelled in every subject, she hated calculating people’s thoughts. She hated trying to “understand” social and historical structures. This resistance had nothing to do with the subjects themselves; it was purely a matter of personal taste.

She remembered the era of her childhood, back when companies would spend a fortune for a prime-time slot on CCTV. Those same companies loved to stage donation ceremonies at orphanages to boost their reputations. The scene was always the same: a high-spirited boss in a crisp suit standing on a stage while the orphanage children took turns shaking hands, bowing, and reciting hollow, polite platitudes. At the end, they’d line up behind a banner while confetti flew and the television cameras clicked and flashed.

Because she was a top student, beautiful, and had a tragic backstory, she was always the one chosen to speak. When the host asked what her dream was, she would smile and say, “To study hard and build the future,” only to go back to her diary and write “Humanity should be destroyed.”

She wasn’t a sociopath; she just found the whole thing degrading. Why did her illness and her misery have to be a public exhibition? Why did she have to bow and scrape for the chance to go to school? Why did the kids who were driven to school in private cars every day never have to show such gratitude? Why did she always have to be the one to be pitied?

A child’s world is simple and cruel. Back then, she didn’t understand it as “formalism”; she just saw it as hypocrisy. She hated waiting in the orphanage to be “selected,” hated performing tearful gratitude in an ill-fitting red coat, and hated pretending she didn’t care about the wounds.

She had no interest in studying human society or understanding the social ailments and power dynamics behind a charitable show. She preferred to bury herself in Physics problems; at least numbers and formulas were elegant and clean, untainted by human affairs.

Of course, I’m not telling Xia Chao any of that, Ping Yuan thought silently.

When Xia Chao looked at her, she only saw Ping Yuan’s calm, detached face. Her eyes were beautiful—cold yet alluring when half-closed, carrying a hint of scrutiny and a lazy sort of indifference.

Xia Chao suddenly blurted out, “Sister, do you like Physics?”

Ping Yuan’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Physics seems to fit your vibe. It’s precise, rational, and…” she searched for the word, “…elegant.”

There was another reason she didn’t mention: Ping Yuan was beautiful in a way that suggested a high-speed, brilliant mind. The kind of beauty that could solve complex problems with a flick of a pen. But that felt too childish to say out loud.

Xia Chao thought to herself: My old deskmate used to drive me crazy talking about her older sister in college, like she was the most amazing person on earth. Back then, it had annoyed her. She’d snap back, “Your sister’s the one in college, not you. What are you so proud of?” Her deskmate would just retort, “You’re just jealous!”

Now… I think I finally understand my deskmate.

Having a sister who is smart and beautiful is something very much worth bragging about! Xia Chao, unaware that she was being captivated by Ping Yuan’s aura, looked at her with pure admiration.

The sparkling, fervent look in her eyes made Ping Yuan cough awkwardly. She hadn’t even said anything yet—what was this kid so impressed by? Her face felt a bit warm, and for once, she forgot to nitpick the fact that Xia Chao had called her “Sister.” She nodded and gave a minimalist reply: “Mhm.”

After a pause, she asked, “Then what do you like? Don’t worry about how hard it is to learn. Just tell me what interests you.”

Xia Chao thought for a moment. “Physics and Geography.”

This surprised Ping Yuan. “Why?”

“Mmh…” Xia Chao bit her lip, looking up at the ceiling as she often did when thinking. Combined with her bright eyes, it gave her a look of innocent, youthful curiosity. “For Physics… I think it’s just beautiful when you learn it.”

A precise kind of beauty where one is one and two is two.

She tried to recall the “rusty” terms in her head: “Newton’s First Law says… if an object experiences no external force, it stays at rest or in uniform motion. So, if we take away all the friction and resistance, and you give a ball a tiny push, it will travel in a straight line forever.”

“Conversely, if a ball is in a state of… equilibrium of forces, no matter how much pressure it’s under whether it’s on the ground, in the water, or in outer space, as long as the balance isn’t broken, it will stay there forever.”

“It’s incredible,” she said wistfully. “That this law applies to every single thing in the universe. The whole cosmos seems to be in relative stillness, yet in eternal motion. But only humans have written the laws of the universe into theorems. I think that’s romantic.”

Her shining eyes left Ping Yuan momentarily speechless.

The girl in front of her might not know much about Physics. In fact, her stumbling vocabulary made it clear she’d only studied it properly before her mother got sick. But she was right. The universe is just simple stillness and motion. The simplest theorems define physics and the way the world exists, a precision so absolute it eventually leads philosophers and even the founders of physics to believe in the divine.

The laws of the universe are solitary and cold, defining everything like a star hanging eternally in the void, indifferent to human will. This understanding had once been Ping Yuan’s sanctuary. She used this cold, objective perspective to mock the unfairness of her fate, using formulas to wall herself off from a vulgar world that demanded she bow down.

And yet, Xia Chao was looking at it with sparkling eyes and calling it “romantic.”

Ping Yuan almost hated herself for it, but for a split second, she wanted to pretend she didn’t know what the girl was talking about. But she understood it perfectly, perhaps even better than the girl herself. She knew what Xia Chao meant: Truth is a star that can never be plucked from the sky. But what does it matter if we can’t pluck the star? Humans can always look at the floating dust in the light and imagine the sun.

Ping Yuan saw the stars, but Xia Chao saw the countless people trying to understand them.

Ping Yuan lowered her eyes, grudgingly admitting that Xia Chao might actually have a gift—a strange, different kind of talent from her own. She knew how to love people amidst a cold reality.

I’m actually jealous. Ping Yuan blinked silently, saying nothing for a moment before asking softly, “And Geography?”

“For Geography,” Xia Chao mused, “I like it because it makes the world feel huge. I can’t believe there are so many time zones, or that day and night are different lengths in different places, or that it can be winter in one half of the world while it’s summer in the other.”

“I also liked the chapter on celestial motion in Physics,” she added in a small voice. Unfortunately, that was when she had stopped attending class, left to stare at the dust motes dancing in the afternoon sunlight of the hospital ward. “I remember we learned about… what was that scientist’s name? Kepler?”

“Kepler,” Ping Yuan corrected.

“Yes, Kepler!” Xia Chao nodded vigorously, her eyes beaming with ‘You’re so amazing.’ “Just thinking about all the stars in the universe spinning… it’s so romantic.”

Ping Yuan felt her face heating up again. She couldn’t take it. This kid was like a puppy. Ping Yuan hadn’t even done anything, and Xia Chao was already metaphorically wagging her tail in circles.

Am I a soup bone? Ping Yuan wondered, then shook her head. No, too fragrant. Not cool enough.

Regardless, they had a conclusion. Ping Yuan pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write. “Fine. Since you hate the Arts, for the choice between Physics and History, we’re obviously going with Physics.”

“As for the final two…” She tapped her pen against the paper. “We’ll keep Geography as a tentative choice. I’ll ask some friends about the best combinations for future majors. Based on what you’ve said, you might actually be suited for Fluid Mechanics.” She couldn’t help a bit of unrealistic daydreaming. “Maybe you could build drones or large aircraft.”

“What’s Fluid Mechanics?”

Ping Yuan went silent. Celestial motion? Fluid mechanics? Why am I bringing up such high-level concepts?

The only “fluid” this kid was currently dealing with was milk tea.

I should focus on saving this ‘illiterate’ child first.

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